Candlestick Patterns
Abandoned Baby Pattern
A doji gaps clear of the candle before it, then the next candle gaps clear of the doji too, stranding it on an island with open space on both sides.
Eight candidates. Only some are real islands.
Every candidate below is a real 3-candle sequence sitting after a short trend leg. Guess whether it is a true abandoned baby, then reveal it. The verdict is never a judgment call, it comes straight from checking both gaps against the actual high/low of every candle and checking the middle candle's body against the doji threshold. Drag the threshold and a few borderline candidates will flip.
Pick a candidate above, make your call, then reveal it.
How it works
- The middle candle has to gap clear on both sides, not just close away from its neighbors. This page checks the full high/low range of each candle, one overlapping wick and the gap fails, no matter how convincing the bodies look.
- The doji test and the gap tests are independent. A candle can gap perfectly on both sides and still fail if its body is too big to count as a doji, which is why the threshold slider matters.
- The second gap has to run the opposite direction of the first. A gap down into the doji followed by a gap further down is just a strong trend continuing, not an island.
- Context still matters even after the math checks out. A mechanically perfect island with no trend leg behind it is a curiosity, not a reversal signal, since there's nothing for it to reverse.
- True abandoned babies are rare for a structural reason. Three real gaps in a row, two of them running opposite directions, is a specific and uncommon sequence, not something that should show up on a chart every week.
Where this breaks
One held gap looks the same as two, for a moment
The common trap is spotting a doji that gapped away on one side and assuming the setup is complete before the third candle even prints. Half the candidates on this page are built exactly that way: a real gap into the doji, then a third candle that opens back inside the doji's range and closes the island before it ever fully formed. On a live chart that looks identical to a real island for one bar, the tell only shows up once the next candle actually prints and either confirms the second gap or fills straight through it. Waiting for that confirmation costs some of the move, skipping it means trading setups that were never really islands to begin with.